This is my longest break from blogging! I have not blogged in a month, and I apologize. I developed tendinitis in my wrists, so I’ve been trying to limit my computer usage once I get home from work. As a result, I am very backed up in editing, but I have amazing clients who have been very patient this last month. Thank you! I am busy packing up my belongings as I’ll be moving to Las Vegas next month!

Liza and Calvin were staying in Hong Kong at the time when they booked me over the phone for their wedding. They were coming back to Boston just a few days before their ceremony, so I didn’t have time to meet them in person before the wedding. All I could think was, “Wow, I hope they like me.” I know this isn’t uncommon in the industry, especially if you are planning a destination wedding, but I feel like there is something missing even if you try to simulate an in person meeting through Skype. It is just not the same. But everything worked out wonderfully (except for the hideous traffic) and I am really excited to show you the wedding!!

The wedding took place a few weeks ago at Wellesley city hall in front of a small, intimate group of friends. When I arrived, I found out that the justice of the peace was willing to hold the ceremony outside. I was extremely excited because city hall has beautiful landscaped yards. It was a sweltering 95 degrees that day but that didn’t phase Liza and Calvin. Since they are from Hong Kong, they are used to the heat and humidity! Thankfully there were some large trees nearby, so we could cool down a little in the shade.

They still had their rings in the little Tiffany bags. Cute!

Officially married now!!

We headed over to Wellesley College to take some portraits. It was my first time visiting the college, and it’s probably the prettiest campus I’ve ever been to. I was so happy to find lots of tall grass because I’ve been wanting to shoot in a field for a long time!

When I saw this field, I knew we had to pull over and get some shots with the purple flowers! I know this sounds silly, but I have been dreaming about doing a shoot with a field full of either yellow or purple flowers. When we actually walked into the field, reality set in. The ground was very uneven and the grass was so tall you couldn’t see the holes in the ground. I was afraid someone would twist their ankle but thankfully that didn’t happen. Plus there were lots of bugs eating us alive! It was even more difficult for Liza because I asked her to crouch down, and that is no easy feat in a tightly fitted Chinese qipao dress! We almost got a ticket too because we were parked illegally, but the cop left once he saw us walking back to the car.

Then we headed off to their reception at Blue Ginger, a restaurant run by the celebrity chef Ming Tsai. They had a private room, which seated about a dozen people comfortably.

Hands down this is the best wedding food I’ve ever eaten! His signature butterfish dish is ridiculously good. I sat at the table with all of the guests (there was only 1 table anyway), and even though I had only met them that day, we became friends right away and it felt like I had known them for much longer!

Unlike other celebrity chefs, Ming Tsai is often at his restaurant. He came over to wish the bride and groom congratulations and presented them with an autographed cookbook.

This is the first time where I’ve seen candles being blown out at a wedding, but I thought it was very cute gesture to make a wish on your wedding day!

Congratulations Liza and Calvin! Thank you so much for letting me document your day!

More pictures can be found on my Facebook page.

Emily and Grant are getting married this Saturday and I am so excited to shoot their wedding at the MIT chapel! I knew Emily and I were going to hit it off when we met because we have the same name! What’s not to like?! When we were planning their engagement session, Emily brought up the idea of doing a few shots in Cambridge, where they live, and then driving over to Charlestown. I’ve never been to that part of Boston, and I looked forward to exploring the historical neighborhoods and the harbor. It was a great session and here are some of the highlights.

Emily has such a great smile!

I love how the light is hitting them. This makes getting up early on a Saturday totally worth it.

We went over to Charlestown Harbor and found some cool distressed buildings.

There’s a lot of random stuff laying around like logs and shipping weights. We had a lot of fun exploring the area.

The view from the harbor was breathtaking! I find it really strange that there are no benches for you to enjoy the view, but there are benches on the other side with absolutely no view. So we found a log and turned it into a makeshift bench.

I love getting shots of my couples laughing. It’s one of the best parts of my job.

We drove endlessly until I found the perfect street for us. Almost all the streets have parking on both sides, and I was desperately looking for one with parking on one side only so the cars wouldn’t get in the way of the shot. We circled for many blocks until we found this street. I love the houses here because they are so colorful and different from the brownstones in Boston. I had them run up the street even though it was one of the hottest days of the summer, and I was able to get this shot. Love how cute they are!

More pics on my Facebook fan page! If you like the pics then please become a fan!

Okay, this is the last installment of Clara and Angelo’s wedding weekend. See part 1 and part 2 here.

Angelo has worked with the church youth for a number of years, and wanted to have a special reception with them and their parents the next day. They asked me to photograph their reception right when I was starting my business, and I’ve been looking forward to this day ever since!

Beautiful updo by the extremely talented stylist Yaya Hsu.

The reception started a little late, so everyone was really happy to be finally eating!

So every time a guest could hula hoop for longer than 10 seconds, then the bride and groom had to kiss for the duration of the hula hooping! Yes, so they were kissing for a loooong time! Too bad they abandoned this game after the first two guests were able to hula hoop for several minutes. Whoever invented this game was genius!!

A lot of Chinese receptions always involve games that focus on how well the bride and groom know each other. Angelo was blindfolded and had to guess which hand was Clara’s among some other guests.

Yes, it wasn’t all girls!

Now it’s Clara’s turn.

They both guessed the correct hand but it took them a while! It was very entertaining to watch.

They also had a photo booth with props, so here’s the lovely bride and groom giving me their most serious pose!

(This is a 3 part wedding series. See previous post for part 1, and I’ll pick up where I left off from the last post.)

Once Clara finished getting her makeup done, it was time to head to the church. We didn’t have much time before Clara was to walk down the aisle, and we quickly whisked everyone in the dressing room at the church. They church has its own theater ministry, so the dressing room looked like the dressing room at a real theater. I wish I had pics but I was helping the girls get ready and running some last minute errands for the wedding. But that’s when the hired photographer came, so I wasn’t worried about taking pictures (that’s the next post!). When Yaya finished retouching all the girls hair, we went upstairs to the sanctuary to take our seats as guests, but it was so full we ended up taking seats in the second to last row. Which meant that every picture I took had pictures of elbows of other guests taking pictures, oh well. And since I was just a guest for Saturday’s wedding, I’m just going to post a few pics.

I like the architecture of the church. However I’m always frustrated though by stained glassed windows because the light shining through it is so bright compared to the church interior.

Somehow the flower girl slipped out of her seat during the ceremony.

Clara and Angelo had the shortest first kiss I’ve ever witnessed, so I was thankful that I got the shot!

Fast forward to the reception. Friends taking pictures of Clara and Angelo cutting the cake.

I like this candid of Clara and Angelo. I think they just finished signing their marriage documents.

Let the dancing begin!

Look who got onto the dance floor and started dancing in the middle of the circle! She is so precious!

Bride and groom hitting the dance floor.

The wedding photographer busting a few breakdancing moves before retiring for the night.

This is going to a 3 part series on Clara and Angelo’s wedding, so get ready for lots of pictures! Last weekend I traveled to DC to attend their wedding..but also to take some pictures. Clara is one of my very good friends, and she asked me to fill in some coverage gaps when their other photographer was not shooting. I was really excited to hang out with her all morning and photograph her getting ready. We started off the morning at her house, and the super talented Yaya Hsu did everyone’s hair. Then I went with Clara and her mom to Red Door Spa to get their makeup done. I was surprised that there was no overhead or natural light, but instead they had flood lights pointed directly at the client. But they did a good job considering they had terrible lighting to work with. And Clara came out looking like a queen!

I love how Yaya incorporated some braiding into her hair!

Now to Red Door spa.

I love this pic!

A while back my husband and I attended a marriage conference called “A Weekend to Remember.” They are huge conferences (maybe like 500 people at the one we attended) and they are held all over the country . It was highly suggested by my church elder to attend one out of town so that you can focus on the conference, and plus, it’s good to get out of town every once in a while. I looked at where all the conferences were being held, and I thought Portland, Maine would be cool since we’ve never been (well I was actually there when I was 8 but I really can’t remember much besides how delicious and cheap the lobster was), and it’s only 1.5 hour drive from our house.

The conference blew me away and our speakers were incredibly engaging and funny. A lot of what they covered was really simple stuff, but yet in marriage, you get so tied up with the day-to-day stuff that you forget how much you need to work on your marriage and to not forget about doing the small simple stuff because it builds up over time. I think conferences like these are especially good for newlyweds because it forces you to analyze your marriage and put together goals on how to improve your marriage. It also helps to identify problems early on before bad habits get too ingrained. We had some really good and deep conversations while dissecting our first year of marriage.

The conference lasts the whole day and part of the next day, so they encouraged to schedule a date night. We really wanted a “night to remember”, so we picked a fancy restaurant called Five Fifty-Five (because the address is 555 Congress St.). When I saw that they had a 4 course tasting menu with lobster truffle mac and cheese, I didn’t bother looking at the rest of the menu because I knew that’s what I wanted. It looks really small but it was very rich and very filling. We also had a sweetbreads (in the middle), which were not sweet and was not bread. I googled on my phone at the restaurant that we were eating thymus and pancreas! It was still good though. For dessert, we had a deconstructed s’more! This restaurant was incredibly yummy! It was definitely one of the best meals I’ve ever had.

The next day we ventured to a small bistro called Duckfat. Yes, that’s what it’s called! They actually fry their french fries in duck fat! They taste phenomenal and they have six different dipping sauces available. We got the truffle ketchup and garlic aioli and they were soooo good! Wow, I am so jealous of people who live in Portland because the food that we had on our trip was amazing.

I had to digest after all the binge eating, so we drove a few and stopped by the marina. Sadly, it was really cold and rainy that weekend, so we didn’t get to explore as much as Portland as I wanted. We just ate a lot instead haha!

This picture was taken using self timer, and I placed the camera on the roof of the car because I didn’t bring a tripod. Sadly this is one of the only pictures we took together all year!

If you made it this far thanks for reading!!

I had the pleasure of taking engagement pictures of my good friends Vivian and Mark. They are getting married on Saturday in New Jersey, and I am super excited! My first wedding this year as a guest! They’ve lived in Cambridge for the last few years, so it was only fitting to take pictures at Harvard Square where they spent the most time as a couple.

Vivian and Mark at both attending the same business school in the fall, so that’s why Mark is holding up the Harvard Business Review. Vivian is reading for leisure.

We shot very early in the morning but the sun was still really bright, so I thought today would be a great day to get a little lens flare!

The month of May was super busy for me because had a lot of engagement sessions, and I’m finally getting around to blogging them all. This is the last one for a while, so soon you’ll be seeing a lot more weddings! Stay tuned!